night" isbc news presented by kcet. funding is made possible by the freeman foundation of new york, vermont, and honolulu. the john d. macarthur foundation and union bank. globaln bank has put its financial strength to work for a wide range of companies, from small businesses to major corporations. what can we do for you?

>> we are a nation of explorers. we seek new ways of living, thinking and of expressing ourselves. we take risks, we learn from experience, and we keep moving forward. that is why we celebrate the explorer in all of us. >> and now "bbc news night." >> facing execution, the british woman on death row for a crime she says she did not commit. campaigners say the case against -- the u.k. government once a retrial.

>> what is life like in here? >> hellish. it is a nightmare. it is a place you don't want to be. >> and the novel about the fear of death of a soldier son completed as his own son was killed in combat. >> in my place rooted in my country with borders that are acknowledged by the arab countries neighboring s and international community. >> since the u.s. supreme court lifted a ban on the death penalty in 1976 there have more than 1200 executions in the u.s. in texas, a state where more than one-third of u.s. executions have taken place, a

british woman could be put to death for a crime she says she did not commit. campaigners for linda say her original trial was flawed and her lawyers are pressing for a retrial. peter marshall has been to texas to meet her. ♪ ♪ [singing "amazing grace"] >> death row texas, the state with the busiest execution chamber. since the bet kelsey was restored -- death penalty was restored, texas has put together -- put to death numerous people.

♪ >> next in line for the lethal injection is linda. >> it is a song that means -- it puts a smile on my heart. >> what is life like in here? >> hellish. in it is a nightmare. it is basically a place you don't want to be. sometimes you hope you can just blank and it would go away, but it is also reality of the situation. >> dacron have been in a houston suburb 10 years ago -- the crime

happened in a houston suburb. three armed men gathered outside this complex and burst in on a neighboring family. this is what the prosecution says. amen pistol whipped the tenant and his cousin -- the men pistol whipped the tenant and took a telephone call from linda. they abducted the man's wife and her baby. the scene shifts to the following day 20 miles across the city. back then this was said to have been the headquarters. this was the driveway of the house and 16 hours later two cars were found. in one the air-conditioner was running and in the back seat was the baby. in the other was the mother.

she had been suffocated. the prosecution claims that to save her failing marriage linda desperately wanted a baby she could pass off as her own. >> it was a fabricated story. the jury would buy it and they would think i and this desperate -- i and this desperate woman that could not have another baby. i was still fertile. >> the state had this theory that she wanted the victim kidnapped because she was pregnant and she was going to cut open the stomach to take the baby out. then we looked at the facts and the baby had already been borne the week before. there was nothing to do with cutting open the stomach. it made a great dramatic affect

for the prosecutor to sit in front of the jury with scissors and say this was what would happen, but in reality it was a drama which was inappropriate. it had no basis in reality. >> this is traveling on many levels. her trial record was woeful. the evidence against linda was thin and inconsistent. what there was came from drug dealers, people who have had made good reason -- who may have had good reason to not like her. in the past she was a paid informant. linda's history as an informant is a cloudy one. she migrated to america from the caribbean with her infant daughter.

she says she was contacted by drug enforcement while digging a drug dealer. the prosecution said she had been arrested for theft. her daughter pictured here with her mother and graduation ceremony said she grew up with knowledge of the drug enforcement world. >> i always thought i have to find something else to do because it was stressful. constant worrying who might find out where we live. if we were ever going to be in danger. i never worried that my mom would be on the opposite end. >> you knew the dea behind it. >> it was like family. i refer to him as uncle charlie. for years that my mom worked for

the dea. i spoke to him often. in new everything i was doing in school. >> linda says her ever cover worked landed her on death row. >> i think somebody informed on me. the person had to be inside. there were not too many people that knew what i was assigned to. >> so they tried to frame you? >> exactly, for me to survive would have brought the entire drug cartel down. >> downtown houston, new lawyers are trying to save her life. >> i had the view that if someone has been convicted of murder, they probably did it but still deserve a full defense. i looked into this case.

once our team got into a we were blown away by the fact that she did not have a fair trial. she did not have the defense. it changed our whole impression for the team. >> one of the top witnesses for the state was a state officer from the dea. he was shocked that her lawyers never spoke to him because he was ready to testify and that she was not a killer. >> the problem was her lawyer did not ask any questions that would have helped her. >> this is linda's trial lawyer. he has quite a reputation. he specialized in death penalty cases and was unsuccessful.

of 39 clients, no fewer than 20 ended up on death row. he has been accused of failing clients and the rarely meeting some. he met linda just 15 minutes before she went on trial. is jerry there? we tried to contact him to talk to him about the case, but he has proven elusive. we went to his office and got nowhere. jerry is not here today and they told me they don't know where he can be contacted. we did speak to the key witness jerry metts, linda's former d e a handler.

-- the key witness jerry missed. >> linda worked as a confidential informant for me, gathering information and tips. she made authorized buys of narcotics. linda also worked with the houston police department. i would have testified linda is not a violent person. i don't believe linda is capable of killing another human being. >> one of further fact jerry nest was linda's nationality. she is a british subject. the anti death penalty group set up a mock -- the british consulate has made linda his priority. the most important thing for me -- the british government has a policy wherever british nationals overseas are facing

death penalty, but we are trying to support them. we oppose the death penalty. her defense lawyer had plenty of opportunities to defend her nationality. they could have happened at her arrest. it did not happen. if it is one of the most important things we need to focus on, the fact that she did not get the support she needed. >> being british could be the only lifeline so late. do you feel british? >> i am british. it is not something i can wash off. >> i am british and i am proud to be british. [inaudible] >> i miss my daughter and i miss my grandson. i am denied the privilege of

seeing them. i cannot hold him. >> she is more than just my mom, she is my best friend. we talked about everything. i doubt i would have been able to -- it did not make any sense. >> this case is so far from what anyone could and mentioned possible in a death penalty situation. it is outrageous. >> ♪ >> linda awaits execution date and praise for clemency from a texas governor who has only once commuted a death sentence. ♪

>> she sings of amazing grace, but it is mercy that is required. >> in a week in which israeli and palestinian politicians have been meeting in washington, there has been a lot of talk about extremism and compromise. sometimes the words induces a numbness. one novel is about the human cost of a conflict in which so many ordinary families are torn apart by forces outside their control. the author lost his own son in combat in 2008. i went to meet him in london. the title of your novel can mean many things. one thing is the end of israel itself. is that something you have ever thought about? >> i don't have to contemplate,

it is there. it is a subcurrent that in principle our life. we exist in constant fear. there is a moment when they climbed the mountain and look at the generous green landscape. she tells him, isn't it always like this regarding israel that every encounter with this country is also bidding farewell to it? i don't think there is another country that its future is so questionable. >> the central figure is a mother who wants to walk in the wilderness because she cannot bear the fact that her son is serving in the army.

what is it that attracted you to that and put it in a woman's voice? >> so much of the book is about family life. i wanted to write about life because i think the greatest drama is humanity is of the family. i wanted to create this loaded bubble of family and put it against the conflict. against the background of our conflict and show how a violent conflict radiates itself into this bubble. we had 28 good years for the family. in our country, that is almost [unintelligible] 20 years we had a long time. don't forget, six of those years

covered the two boys armed service. they both served in the territory in knee worse places. we -- in the worst places. from any war or terrorist attacks, from any rocket, bullet, explosive device, a suicide bomb, the fact that we just leave out the quiet life you get a small life, one that deals as little as possible with the situation. >> i think the main character in the book is the anti-mother courage. she is the mother.

she is not just an israeli mother, she is not the jewish mother. one thing that struck me when i read the book is the fact that the few female characters in the book, she is surrounded with men. >> the anxiety she lives with her fear that she may one day get a call to say her son has died in action. that is a fear that grips every israeli family. he has described and identified every texture of those emotions. he has not just stated israelis live with existential fear, he has drilled deeper into that feeling. >> i note it is difficult for you to talk about the loss of your own son who was serving in the 11 non -- serving in

lebanon, but there are obvious parallels. did that give you a new sympathy for the dilemma of the mother? >> it made things more acute timmie -- the key it to me. -- acute to me. when i wrote about and i understand more, through writing i can understand things i don't allow myself to understand in life. writing is very exposing. even the subversive act against the defense mechanism of the writer. nothing has changed in the book in the plot, but since the writer has changed i think the

intensity of the book has changed. understanding that this cannot go on like this. that it is so terrible that the efforts of creating the human being in this world, all we invest in creating one human being, all this effort and good will and devotion and attentiveness to all the needs of this human being, and the indifference with which we kill people. it is unbearable. i hope that my book tells this story in the most intimate way. >> you say in the epilogue that during his military service your

son was really engaged in that. i wondered what at adds. >> i would rather not talk very much about it. it is very private except for the affect of what happened, but even before what happened i felt this attentiveness to my children. you don't have to be -- you just have to be a parent. just have to worry for your son or your daughter. our daughter's also go through the army. you just have do your best to create a reality for him that he will not have to go through things you had to win you were

his age. i was also in the army. i hope when my children had to go through the army situation would be different. i don't see that. >> no death is acceptable, but of all people he should lose, his son. the fact that he could write about a mother who is afraid for death of her son and still go on to write the book is incredible. >> she lives in fear of a knock on the door from the military authorities. that knock on the gore came during the middle of the night telling him his son died. that infuses the book with an extra weight of grief. >> you should leave israel if he is killed. is that something you have ever considered. >> there are always temptations.

i know when i leave is went israel stops being a democracy. >> is that possible? >> it is possible everywhere. as long as we are stuck in this war situation there is a growing ability for fundamentalism and all the bad things that can bring about stopping democracy. but i hope i will stay in israel because i believe for a jewish person, israel is the most significant place to be and implement our culture. i think that part of the tragedy of the jewish individual is that we have never felt at home in the world. now we have israel for 62 years

and yet it is not the home it was meant to be. because we don't have fixed borders and our borders move. it is as if you are living in a house where the walls are mobile. all the time they are moving. there is this temptation of others to invade you. i want a home. i want israel as a home. i want to have something -- i don't know if i can explain in to someone who was born in great britain. we never felt a solidity of the existence. i want to have it. i want to be rooted in my country with borders that are acknowledged by the arab

countries. i want to have a feeling that i am having a future there. i am not sure about it. all these can be achieved only when israel has peace. only then should they be able to recover from the disease of our history. >> the peace process that has begun again, you think it is necessary. you sound hopeful. is that reasonable? >> we might be surprised, but i am not sure both our latest -- be israeli and palestinian leaders are courageous enough, at the steps needed in order to achieve a compromise. second, i feel even if peace comes today, in some aspect it

comes too late. because options of brutality, content words with human life have been already ingrained in both people. after 100 years of fighting and killing, of not believing in the option of peace. regarding peace as a dangerous illusion. this might present us in the future from maintaining this fragile peace. i know there will be some many elements who will do everything they can in order to assassinate this piece. that maybe it is too late for us. >> thank you very much. the israeli author, david

grossman. for all of us, could buy. -- goodbye. funding is made possible by the freeman foundation of new york, vermont and honolulu. the john d. rockefeller -- macarthur foundation and union bank. >> and union bank has put its financial strength to work for a wide range of companies. what can we do for you? what can we do for you?